Culture isn’t something you build once. You need to shape it continually in order to make it visible, felt and operationalised. Here’s how an HR leader has done just that at major ASX-listed companies.

When guiding organisations through the process of shaping their culture, I often begin with a deceptively simple question: if your culture were a person, how would you describe them?

I ask them to imagine their ‘culture’ walking into the room. Who is it?

• A friendly neighbour who has your back?
• A high-energy innovator?
• A laid-back beach-goer who values work-life balance above all?

This exercise is more than just a metaphor – it’s a powerful diagnostic tool. 

Humanising culture makes it tangible, relatable and easier to interrogate. It allows leaders to move beyond abstract values and examine the lived experience of their workplace. When culture is personified, its hidden traits come into sharper focus – the attitudes, behaviours and unspoken norms that quietly shape how people feel and operate.

It can also surface critical cultural misalignments. For instance, if an organisation claims to value collaboration, but the ‘person’ who walks into the room when you imagine your culture personified is a high-achieving individual contributor hungry to quickly disrupt legacy thinking, that tension points to a gap between what is professed and what is practised. 

These inconsistencies are often where cultural drift begins – and where meaningful culture work must focus. Because culture isn’t a set of words on a poster on the wall. It’s an organisation’s personality – complex, evolving and often full of contradictions.

It’s something you need to get right because, according to OC Tanner’s 2024 Global Culture report, the organisational gains are impactful. For example, organisations with thriving cultures are:

• Four times more likely to have highly engaged employees.
• 13 times more likely to have highly engaged teams delivering strong business outcomes.
• Seven times more likely to experience strong commercial growth.

These are exponential improvements.

When culture is aligned and deliberately shaped, it amplifies performance, engagement and innovation.

What personality does your culture have today? And what personality do you want it to have tomorrow? Below, I share some examples of instances where I’ve helped organisations reshape their cultures, and what I learned in doing so.

No set-and-forget cultures

Culture is often talked about as something intangible. In reality, it’s a powerful connector between your organisational identity and the people who live it every day. When done well, culture feels emotional, immersive and undeniable.

When I worked with big brands renowned for their culture – such as IKEA, Amazon and Netflix – what stood out was that culture wasn’t just something they had. They work hard on it every day. They safeguard it and constantly mould it.

They use a human-centred design process to harness their people’s energy and feedback to create an experience of work, culture and environment where everyone feels connected to the mission and empowered to contribute. 

This connection creates commercial success because their culture flows directly into every product, customer interaction and strategic decision.

Here’s the playbook we followed in these organisations to build a culture that powers the business, aligns with its mission and values, and energises its people – all the while driving commercial performance.

1. Define what culture means for your organisation

• Create a culture mapping canvas to map where your culture is today versus where you want it to be in the near future to identify gaps beyond surface-level assumptions.
• Facilitate leadership alignment workshops to agree on how the culture should feel, sound and look to drive business success.
• Conduct pulse interviews across all levels – candid conversations, not just surveys – to capture authentic employee perspectives.
• Test your values against behaviours with brand and values vibe testing to ensure alignment between what’s said and what’s lived.

Why it matters: This clarity establishes a cultural north star, uniting your workforce and accelerating aligned decision-making. IKEA’s “democratic design” ethos is an example of a deeply embedded cultural identity guiding every action.

2. Listen for the culture on the street (not just in surveys)

• Employ digital ethnography tools to observe informal communication channels like Slack or Teams for unfiltered culture cues. Make sure employees are aware of this data collection and how you intend to use the insights: transparent data collection is always advised.
• Create cultural listening posts – these are trusted employees who gather frontline cultural insights and share trends. Again, it’s important to approach this with transparency in mind.
• Implement real-time feedback loops through pulse surveys for ongoing input.
• Host safe-space focus groups with neutral facilitators to uncover unspoken cultural norms and challenges.

Why it matters: Going beyond formal surveys uncovers subtle cultural undercurrents and early warning signs. Netflix’s commitment to ongoing listening keeps their “freedom and responsibility” culture alive and adaptive.

3. Connect culture to commercial outcomes

• Translate business goals into behavioural roadmaps that define specific actions and mindsets fueling innovation, customer focus and operational excellence.
• Deliver values in action training showcasing concrete examples of culture driving everyday decisions.
• Develop behavioural competency frameworks that integrate culture-aligned behaviours into performance and development processes.
• Use leader scorecards embedding culture KPIs alongside financial and operational targets to hold leaders accountable.

Why it matters: Embedding culture as a strategic engine turns it into a direct driver of growth and profitability. After working with companies such as Amazon and PepsiCo, I learned about the importance of having leadership principles tightly woven into commercial success.

4. Involve people in shaping culture

• Form cross-functional culture squads. These are passionate employees from all levels and functions who co-own culture initiatives and energise grassroots momentum.
• Facilitate culture in action workshops where teams define their own rituals, shared language and daily behaviours embodying values.
• Encourage team rituals and storytelling to celebrate achievements, reinforce shared values, and create a sense of belonging. 

Why it matters: These practices build emotional connection, strengthen team identity, and make culture tangible in daily work.

“To unlock culture’s full power, HR leaders must treat it like any other key commercial metric: measure it rigorously, report it transparently and manage it proactively.”

Tips you can use to start reshaping your culture this week

If your organisational culture is in need of a reset – or even just a small realignment – here are a few things you can try to start moulding it into a more productive and effective shape.

1. Run a ‘Culture Mirror’ session with your leadership team

Gather your senior leaders in a candid workshop where you ask, “If our culture walked into a room, what would people feel, see, or hear?” Encourage brutal honesty and openness.

The goal is to surface unfiltered perceptions, not just polished PR stories.

Capture stories, real-life examples and feelings that emerge. This reflection creates a baseline understanding of how culture is currently experienced and highlights gaps between intended culture and reality.

Next, use the insights as a foundation to align leadership on authentic culture goals.

2. Audit your customer experience

Map out key customer touchpoints – from first inquiry to after-sales service – and assess where your culture clearly influences those experiences.

For instance, does your brand’s promise of ‘care’ show in every interaction? Identify moments where culture is silent, inconsistent or even contradictory to customer expectations.

This audit reveals hidden culture strengths to amplify and weak spots to address, linking culture directly to commercial outcomes and brand reputation.

3. Identify your culture champions

Look around your organisation to spot those employees who naturally embody your desired culture – the ones who go above and beyond, who live your values daily and inspire others. These champions don’t have to be senior; often they’re frontline or middle management.

Amplify the voices of these people by involving them in culture initiatives, storytelling or mentorship roles. Their authenticity creates contagious energy that spreads cultural norms far more effectively than top-down mandates.

4. Treat culture as a commercial KPI

Culture is a critical business asset that directly impacts performance, innovation and customer experience. Yet, too often, it’s treated like an afterthought or a vague HR initiative. To unlock culture’s full power, HR leaders must treat it like any other key commercial metric: measure it rigorously, report it transparently and manage it proactively.

5. Map culture to your business goals

Take your organisation’s three-year strategic plan and overlay it with a cultural needs analysis. Ask: what behaviours, mindset and ways of working do we need to achieve these goals? For example, if innovation is a priority, culture may need to encourage risk-taking and learning from failure.

If customer intimacy is key, culture should emphasise empathy and responsiveness. This exercise ensures culture isn’t an abstract ideal but a practical enabler tightly linked to business success.

6. Revisit leadership behaviours

Culture flows from the top. Examine whether your leaders are actively modelling the behaviours that support your desired culture or if they’re tolerating, perhaps unknowingly, behaviours that undermine it – such as micromanagement, blame or siloed thinking.

This review might involve 360-degree feedback, coaching conversations, or leadership assessments. Holding leaders accountable for cultural alignment reinforces culture as a leadership imperative, not just an HR program.

Read HRM’s article ‘7 questions to ask to make your coaching session more impactful.’

7. Start culture pulse checks

Implement regular, short and focused surveys or conversations that go beyond generic engagement questions. These pulse checks should measure how people are feeling about specific cultural elements – such as trust, inclusion, innovation mindset – providing real-time temperature readings.

Use qualitative open questions to gather stories and examples. Frequent feedback loops enable you to spot trends early, respond quickly and keep culture front of mind throughout the employee lifecycle.

8. Embed culture in onboarding

Make your culture a lived experience from day one. Go beyond a static slide deck or policies by designing onboarding experiences that immerse new hires in your culture – storytelling sessions with culture champions, shadowing employees who exemplify core values, or interactive workshops on ‘what success looks like

Who’s holding the microphone?

Your culture is already talking – to your people, your customers, the market. Is it speaking by default, or are you actively shaping its message?

Choose design. Choose deliberateness. Choose to build a culture that is dynamic, commercially savvy and worth following. When culture becomes more than a backdrop, it becomes a strategic asset.

D’Neale Prosser is an experienced HR leader. She is a culture custodian & employee experience architect who formerly worked with IKEA & Everyday Massive who partners with Netflix, Lego, Mattel and Amazon, among others.

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